Meth Vs Death No Way Out

CHAPTER 1

Today as I write, it is March 11, 2013 and I am not sure what my future holds. I will tell you the events that led me to the eight by fourteen jail cell I call home now and for the next couple of years. For you to get a complete understanding of how it feels to be in my shoes, I will start as far back as I can remember. Every word I write is the painful truth of how my life has played out so far. It is an up and down roller coaster ride—my high’s will leave that warm butterfly feeling in your stomach and my lows are the all-time lows that leave you sick and in disbelief.

At three years old, my life on this earth had just begun. I call it God’s grace that spared me, others may call it luck or fate but whichever it may have been, I could have died on this day. The summer of 1984; I remember the whole family mourning the loss of a loved one. A dark cloud hung over my mother and our family for several years. There’s no way to describe the emotions of losing a child to an unexpected chain of events, there is no recovery from a tragedy such as this one.

My three brothers and I were riding with my mother on an old country road when the front right tire blew out on our car. It caused us to swerve out of control. Our car flipped over several times until the car was upside down and in a ditch. My mother began screaming and crying. It threw Brandon and Mikey through the front windshield. My mother, Dan and I were in the car unharmed. Fifteen-month-old baby Brandon was okay, he had a nasty cut on his cheek from hitting the pavement. Mikey died on impact. I will never forget the accident. Growing up, I never heard my mom talk of that day. I’m sure it’s a day that will forever haunt her dreams.

Over the next couple of years, I remember playing with my younger brother Brandon in our yard, chasing each other trying to dodge our grandfathers’ switches—normal childhood memories of five-year-old kids. A vivid memory of that time is when Brandon and I were playing on the swing set. We were hanging on the top bar of the swing pretending to be a gymnast when Brandon came crashing down to the ground. Upon impact, his tongue was between his teeth and he bit it in half. Blood was everywhere, and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. I ran inside to get my mom and she was in complete panic. Once she got him in the house to rinse his mouth, his tongue was in two pieces. We rushed him to the hospital where they sewed his tongue back together. I do not recall how long it took for him to recover, but it influenced his speech. It slurred his speech from that day forward.

Brandon went through elementary school having to take speech classes and later the teachers placed him in special education classes. Teachers and classmates treated him as if he were slow. This turned him against school at an early age and played a role in lowering his self-esteem and confidence in school and around his peers. He believed he was slow and not as smart as other kids his age. Over the years he settled for that and never applied himself in school. When you are a kid just starting school, a speech impairment causes others, such as peers and parents to have a different belief of you. That is one small event that will change the course of Brandon’s entire life.

When I was seven, we moved from Clay Tennessee to Giles Tennessee. I started first grade at a new School. The school was new for me, but I had no trouble with school work or making friends. What Brandon lacked in school work, he made up for on the football field. He had all the athletic ability and talent one could hope for.

My name, Stormy Rainey, got me a lot of attention. There were always people commenting on my name. I had instant popularity in our small town. I was too young at the time to understand how I got my unusual name. It was not luck or chance that landed me my name; it was fate. Rainey is not my biological last name. Stewart is my given name and the name on my birth certificate. When I was two, my mother and father had a nasty divorce. My biological father signed his rights over to my mother on Brandon and me, then my mother remarried Pete Rainey who adopted us. He raised us as his own and the Rainey family went from one son to three sons. That is how I got my name.

Our brother Mikey was no longer with us and Dan moved in with his mother, so Brandon and I were the only kids in the house. I was not old enough to understand how the loss of Mikey was taking a toll on our family. Having a child of my own, I could not imagine life on earth without him. It is a loss that a parent never recovers from. Looking back now I can understand why my dad was so hard to please and impossible to have a good relationship with. He was that way with everyone else in the family to. We grew up with a hard ass as a father. If we didn’t do as they told us we would get our asses busted with a belt, a stick, his hand, or anything that was convenient.

It wasn’t until I got older that I wondered if dad had resentment towards Brandon and I for being the ones to survive that wreck. Mikey, his biological son died that day and my mom was driving the car. Did he resent all of us for his loss or did he resent God and his life as it was? I am sure it played a role in his being angry and drinking all the time. He carried that with him over the years and it ate away at him piece by piece.

I had a decent childhood. I’m not saying my parents, or the way they raised me are the reasons I’m writing this story from a jail cell. Ten years ago, I would have blamed them. I know now that the blame falls on me. Through the years, Brandon and I were close. Growing up, we shared the same room and played football throughout school together. My grandfather got us on the field at an early age. He was the founder of junior pro football in the county I lived in and he played football at Father Ryan High School. From there he went to Vanderbilt University and was a tremendous athlete.

Brandon and I were a great duo on the field. We kicked ass and played hard. We won many trophies along the way, including MVP, Best Offensive Back and Most Aggressive. I won Most Dedicated once, and that disappointed me. I didn’t realize how foolish I was for feeling that way. Dedication is the most important thing to succeed at anything in life.

We continued to play football throughout high school. I was halfway through my junior year when I got kicked off the football team. Brandon was a freshman. When I got banned, he quit playing too. We had each other’s back no matter what and went buck wild hitting the streets wide open. Brandon and I got good at being bad, so we skipped school and rebelled against our parents. We did what we wanted when we wanted to. All the whippings we endured growing up made us angry. Brandon and I grew out of the belt. If my dad or anyone wanted to whip us, it would be in the yard hand-to-hand. If someone wanted to whip one of us, they had to fight both of us.

We stopped coming home. Smoking weed, taking Xanax, Valium and snorting cocaine became part of our daily routine. It didn’t take long for the truancy board to get involved and summons mom and dad to court. At fifteen years old, we appeared in front of a judge. We were both considered unruly and out of control, so they placed us on a probationary period. We had a counselor visit us at home once a week who would report back to the judge about our behavior. Tupac had just blown up at the time and my theme song was Fuck the World.

It was no surprise that less than a month after our first appearance, we were back in front of the judge. Brandon got the notion to laugh at what he had to say, so he told Brandon to pack his toothbrush and had the bailiff take him in to custody. From there, they sent him to a reform school. It is a level three security lockdown for juveniles. They gave me another warning to obey my parents, and they assigned me my first probation officer who would drug test me once a week.

I had a new plan in mind. I needed money, so I decided If I sold the drugs I liked then I could get high for free. My cousin Mary, five years older than I, could get what she wanted from men. She paged me one afternoon after school and ask me to come by her house to meet her new boyfriend. It was just the opportunity I had been waiting for. It was the last day of school my junior year and I was riding with my boy Jay. We were smoking our usual After school blunt and I told him to hit the pay phone. I called Mary and let her know we were on our way. My friends loved going to her house. She was twenty-three with a nice body, and they were only sixteen. She had a new boyfriend she wanted me to meet.

The same Ivan we always meet in Nashville and I always have to stay in the car? I asked. That is the one, she said. I had never met him, but I knew who he was and what he did, he was the hook up on anything you wanted. I informed my boys who he was on our ride there. We went from hustling dime bags, to having a direct connect to as many pounds of weed as we wanted.

When we got there, Mary made my friends wait in the car. I walked in and played it cool, trying to look unimpressed. I looked around the room and noticed there were five goons lounging around the house. All of them were packing. There was a pile of cash on the table they were counting and they all looked at me like I was lunch meat. I knew I had nothing to worry about, Mary wouldn’t let anyone mess with me. I kept a straight face and asked Ivan, What did you want to see me about?

One goon in the room stood up and said, That’s a good question, what do you need to see this little boy about, he looks like he’s twelve. I’m about to be seventeen, I said, as I stood up and grabbed my nuts. I got your boy right here punk. I was young, and I looked even younger than I was. I had a chip on my shoulder and not scared of much. A seventeen-year-old boy that doesn’t give a fuck can be dangerous. A.J. was the fool I was having words with. He came off the couch straight for me. I was ready to drop him with the one hitter quitter. I was five foot six and a hundred and forty-five pounds. In my mind, I could take King Kong out. I was about ready to strike when I heard a gun cock back. It was Ivan’s forty-five. That’s the first time I ever heard a gun.

When I turned to look he had it pointing at AJ’s head. Ivan said, Fool, sit your ass down. Don’t make me pistol whip your ignorant ass! Just like that, A.J. sat down on the couch. I smirked at him and followed Ivan back to his room. Mary was chopping out lines of cocaine on the dresser and handed me the straw, I snorted the biggest one she had laid out on the mirror. The all too familiar Tupac song played in my head, along with the ringing from the half gram I snorted.

"I’m up before the sunrise, first to hit the block. Little bad motherfucker with a pocket full of rocks."

It was all I could do not to gag and vomit everywhere. So, I hear you’re popular in school, Ivan said.

Yea. I know everyone. Guess it’s my name, I replied.

Good Storm, I like the way you carry yourself, Ivan commented.

He asked me how much green I needed as he was opening his safe. Until then, the most weed I had ever seen was an ounce. I acted as though I had seen plenty of bricks before.

I said, Let me get that brick, what’s the ticket? That should hold me over.

You owe me a thousand by Saturday, he said.

I jumped back in the car and told Jay to drive. I pulled the brick out of my coat and grabbed a bud the size of my fist. Roll a couple blunts dog, we have to sell this elbow by Saturday. I owe Ivan for it. Yawl think we can pull it off?

So, it began—bagging and tagging. Breaking down sixteen ounces in Jay’s room at night while his mom was at work. We bagged it all up, sixteen ounces in a pound. Sixty-four quarters in sixteen ounces. Each baggie weighed one gram. Sixty-four baggies saved us sixty-four grams of weed. That is two ounces and eight grams of personal smoke. The rest was for sale. Our goal was to sell each quarter for thirty dollars apiece and to do so by Saturday’s deadline. We smoked for free and still made our money.

In two days, I pulled back up at Mary’s and walked in like I owned the place. I slammed nine, one hundred-dollar bills on the table and said, Let me get another one.

When will you have my money? Ivan asked.

I pulled nine hundred dollars out of my pocket, This should cover it.

As he counted it, he had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. That was the first time I had ever seen him smile. You’re a hundred short, he replied.

I said, I figured since I paid you on the spot for this one, the price would go down. We’re even, right? There was an awkward moment of silence.

Then he hugged my neck. Little bro, you will go far in this business. Yes, we’re even Storm. I’ll be back to get more in about twenty-four, I said as I opened the door.

Before I could get out the front door, Ivan stopped me and said, I tell you what, Stormy, you bring me three grand tomorrow and I have five pounds with your name on it.

Shit sounds good bro, I’ll see you tomorrow. Jay and I were doing the math on the way to Jay’s. We made nineteen hundred and twenty dollars on the first two days. For us to produce three thousand dollars off one pound would be damn near impossible. So, we hit the streets hard, selling quarters, trying to come up with the three thousand we needed. In our minds, we could make a quick come up, calling everyone we knew trying to sell the green. The next day we had eighteen-hundred dollars, still shy of our mark.

By the time we got back to Ivan’s, we had come up with twelve hundred dollars. Although it’s disappointing that I hadn’t come up with all the cash, he still gave me the five pounds of weed. I agreed to pay the rest of what I owed him as soon as I got it.

You’re moving this green with ease Storm. What do you know about powder? Do any of your people like to snort? Ivan asked.

‘What’s the ticket to the powder?’ I replied.

Not so fast Stormy, I can’t let you run on credit with this shit. That is a rule of mine, front no one cocaine for any reason. Weed is one thing, but cocaine is a whole new ball game. You go out there and get them five pounds in rotation and get your money up. Then we will talk about the powder. Oh yeah, don’t let Mary find out about our conversation, she will kill us both for discussing powder.

Got it, Mary’s tripping, I said. I’m grown, she need not watch out for me.

You’re not grown yet gangster. You still have a lot to learn, trust me, you will find out for yourself in time, Ivan replied.

Okay, Ivan whatever you say, I will holler at you later.

On the way to Jay’s, we stopped and bought a box of titans and two boxes of sandwich bags. We had five pounds in a duffle bag to break down. We thought we were Al Capone and company. Our business was doing well, and we became kings of the high school. We would sell five to ten pounds a week at school. If you lived in our